Category: Technology

I work in technology sector. And I do round a clock, not only from 9 to 5. It is my bread and butter, it is my hobby, it is the fascination of my life. And with the current rate of change particular in information technology (IT), there is always something new to learn, to try, to talk about. I often post news, thoughts, and reviews. And when I do, this is the category I use.

GitHub adds Releases

By now you know that I can’t praise GitHub enough.  It is one of the best tools for developers ever.  Seriously.  It’s up there with git itself, and even Vim.  If you aren’t using it yet, stop whatever it is you are doing and rush there.  Now. I’m not kidding.

So, anyways.  Today GitHub added another awesome feature – Releases.  These are basically git tags on steroids.

GitHub releases

 

I’ve been already playing around with the idea of releases for our work projects. See, for example, phing-version branch of my sandbox repository.  It worked, but it’s not perfect.  With GitHub Releases however I’ll have pretty much everything I need – release notes, easy full diff reviews, binary attachments, etc.

A little side note for binary attachments: I mostly work with PHP, which doesn’t really need binary attachments.  But I am a part of other, “heavier” projects, developed in C++ for example.  This feature will come in handy.  Also, as far as PHP goes, I was playing with the idea of using RPM and YUM as a mechanism for managing installation, upgrade, and downgrade process.

Back to GitHub Releases now.  This is an excellent example of why you should use GitHub instead of setting up your own environment.  You’ll waste more time and money.  It will be ugly.  And you’ll have to maintain it.  With GitHub you’ll focus on your actual development work and will get excited every now and then when they add a new feature.

Human head transplant, anyone?

Human head transplant, anyone?

Slashdot is reporting that human head transplants are now possible:

Technical barriers to grafting one person’s head onto another person’s body can now be overcome, says Dr. Sergio Canavero, a member of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group. In a recent paper, Canavero outlines a procedure modeled on successful head transplants which have been carried out in animals since 1970. The one problem with these transplants was that scientists were unable to connect the animals’ spinal cords to their donor bodies, leaving them paralyzed below the point of transplant. But, says Canavero, recent advances in re-connecting spinal cords that are surgically severed mean that it should be technically feasible to do it in humans.

The technology progress to make this happen is amazing.  But it still feels creepy to me.  Even after reading all the hilarious comments in the Slashdot thread.

Fedora 19 released

Fedora 19 has been released a few hours ago.  This is one of the most interesting releases, feature-wise, for me personally.  Have a look at the announcement, and scroll through the full list of features that made it through.  Here is what I’m going to be looking at first thing tomorrow:

  • MATE Desktop 1.6.  After numerous switches from Gnome to KDE and back, MATE is now my desktop of choice, both at work and home.  Hopefully new version will fix a few minor glitches that I’ve noticed.
  • Developers Assistance.  Not that I need it for my own projects, but it might be useful for bringing more standardization to the office.
  • PHP 5.5.  The latest and the greatest version of the programming language I use on a daily basis.
  • Node.js and npm package manager.  It’s been long overdue.  Node.js is extremely popular these days and having it as part of the standard distribution is mighty useful.  Finally, Fedora users can take advantage of all those numerous projects on GitHub without any additional installation headache.
  • BIND10.  This has been a complete rewrite, and it now includes both DNS and DHCP. That’s interesting.  And probably not too backward compatible. We’ll see.

Yet again huge thanks to everyone who made this release possible.   You guys are awesome, no matter how much or how little ranting will come in the next few days.

What’s the most intellectual joke you know?

What’s the most intellectual joke you know?

This Reddit discussion is golden.  Not only you get the collection of rather specifically humored jokes, but also for those that you don’t get there is always an explanation.  Here are a few that I liked:

Q: What does the “B” in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for?
A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot.

Entropy isn’t what it used to be

A good variation on the 10 kinds of people – those who understand binary and those who don’t:

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.

Something in the Louis C.K. style:

They used to laugh when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well they’re not laughing now!

A couple Freudian ones:

How may Freudians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Two; One to screw in the lightbulb and one to hold the penis… I mean ladder.

and

according to Sigmund Freud, what comes between fear and sex?
Fünf.